What do you think of DecTrek?

[AllenS]

I ran CodaTrek for the second time tonight. I ran the same "Passageways" adventure I had run before (although I used converted Jem'Hadar and Vorta from the Ds9 book as seen by Don's conversion system). I also ran it for my home gaming group rather than the local gaming club; these are people I have known for a long time and the best gamers I know. Many of them have played LUGTrek. They really enjoyed the new system, and said we had to play some more, which greatly heartens me since I had trouble getting them to play Trek before. They all commented on how smooth, fast and cinematic the system is. They were very pleased when I told them this would be the system for Lord of the Rings, too.

Looks like I've got a Star Trek campaign again

Allen

[Silverthorne]

AllenS wish I could join your group.....

[AllenS]

Originally posted by Silverthorne
AllenS wish I could join your group.....

I am fortunate to have them. If you ever wind up in Michigan, you'd be welcome to join in for a session

Allen

[Ineti]

Originally posted by tonyg
Ineti,
Good News, a couple of people are working on new character sheets. You can find them in the CODA rules& mechanics area (in other words, this forum).

Glad to hear it. I'll search through the other threads for it.

I had a chance to flip through more of the book this weekend, good stuff overall.

One question, though...some of the descriptions in the book seem a little off - namely, a reference to Commander Spock (not Captain Spock) and a mention that Quark was never married (though he was, to Grilka). Was there a conscious effort to make the descriptions match the way things were at the beginning of the respective series?

[Erik Filean]

Originally posted by Ineti


Glad to hear it. I'll search through the other threads for it.

I had a chance to flip through more of the book this weekend, good stuff overall.

One question, though...some of the descriptions in the book seem a little off - namely, a reference to Commander Spock (not Captain Spock) and a mention that Quark was never married (though he was, to Grilka). Was there a conscious effort to make the descriptions match the way things were at the beginning of the respective series?

There are some oddities if what you're trying to do is model canonical characters. The Starship Science Officer elite profession lists Commander Spock (correctly, I think) as an example, but the Diplomat profession lists Ambassador Spock even though the likeliest base profession for the character would be Starship Officer. (I would model Spock as of "Unification" as a Starship Officer with the Science Officer and Ambassador elite professions, and perhaps also Command Officer for his stint as captain of the Enterprise--even though it was a training ship at the time.) I don't know where the Captain Spock reference is, but I know Sisko is mentioned as 'Commander' and 'Captain' in different places and Kira as both 'Major' and 'Colonel.'

I doubt, then, that the writers' or editors' intent was to reflect a specific point in time, but to use the ranks or titles appropriate to the character at the point in his or her career that best corresponds to the game issue under discussion. Confusing, maybe, but nothing to worry about.

[qerlin]

Alright....finally ran the game this weekend.

Character creation: beats the pants off of ICON. This was much, much easier. I did a quick skim-through of the book, then followed the character-building graphic on page whatever and had the first character out the chute in just under 1/2 and hour. The rest took 15 minutes, max; and thosewere the one we build from scratch to replace existing, experienced characters. Nothing to it guys!

The playtest went well -- there were no major glitches and I tried to throw as many different skill & attribute tests at people to really give the thing a workout. This required me to port over the ICON starship rules; they flush just fine. Use CODA skills, ICON starship stats...no prob.

The system moved along just as smooth (some said smoother) than ICON did. I kinda missed the att # of dice, add the skill thing, but the combined mods worked great...after we used Don's sheet. The initial go-round with just my wife and I was a bit more confusing with everything scribbled down on a sheet of paper. (Don! Finish the friggin' sheet! )

Combat went smoother than expected. The Quick Draw bonus saved one characters chubbies. The new stun rules -- great idea guys! Works much, much better than the old.

Overall: character creation -- better than ICON. 4 outta 5; playability -- on par with ICON, 4 outta 5; combat -- better than ICON, 4 outta 5; layout of the book -- just move the reaction section back to the rest of the attributes and it'll be better, otherwise, on par with DS9 core bok, 4 outta 5.

After play report: Deb, my wife, prefers CODA; I'm still on the fence and missed some of the ICON qualities that made me want to play the game; my friend the trekkie is on the fence but wants to test it more. Theother two players gave it thumbs up. So 3 out of 5 prefer CODA (this is not a scientific study and has an error rate that I couldn't possibly calculate cause I don't want to do math.)